


Never Been Awake (Never Seen a Day Break)

by Missy



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 08, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Disco, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Humor, Magical Realism, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Sitcom, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Jackie Burkhart wakes up sparkling the day she's supposed to head to Chicago for the audition that might change her life.Things only get weirder from there...





	Never Been Awake (Never Seen a Day Break)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [realface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/realface/gifts).



> Since you requested no drug content in the story, I was super careful not to make too many overt references to the canon's (extremely heavy) lean on pot humor. Hopefully this worked for you!

Jackie Burkhart woke up sparkling on the day she was supposed to go to Chicago. Sparkling. As in her skin was glittering, had turn an unnatural shade of pink and made her look like some sort of Barbie nightmare.

This definitely wasn’t the ‘unique angle’ that her producers had been begging her for.

It also would have been a cool development, if she didn’t have to think about her show, the future, and becoming the woman she was always destined to be. If she didn’t have the weight of figuring out where she and Hyde stood, if they were getting married or not weighing her down.

She was going to have to back out. What could she do? She could just go to college. No, college was for people like Donna who didn’t have their beauty to fall back on. God, she was running around in mental circles! She was turning into a spinning top.

In a panic, she grabbed the phone and called the last number she had for her mother. Her question came out in a declarative sob, and it took minutes for Pam to realize what Jackie was saying. Her tone dripped slow like sugared poison over the phone. “Oh honey! It finally happened!” Pam chirped. “I’m so proud!”

“What happened?! The universe ruining my big chance at becoming a star? Mom, I’m sparkling like a My Pretty Pony! Why is that good news?”

“Oh, you can turn that off,” Pam said. “Just say _abeos sparkles_ and they go away!”

“Um…okay. Abeos Sparkles?” she tried. And in an instant she wasn’t sparkling anymore. “Oh my God, it worked! And my skin looks even more perfect than ever.”

“See? There are some benefits to being a witch.” Pam said.

“What?” Jackie blurted out.

“Honey, you woke up sparkling this morning – probably because you’re super stressed out. It happens to all the women on my side of the family when they hit their twenties, but the Gift always presents itself in different ways. Just face facts - you’re a witch.”

Reflexively, Jackie touched her own cheek. “Oh my GOD! Am I going to grow warts?!” 

Pam laughed. “No, baby. But the whole world’s going to open up for you. Just be careful and follow the rules. I’ll send you a book tomorrow - special order. Are you still living with Donna?”

“No. Wait, tomorrow? I need it now!”

“Good things come to those who wait. Unless we’re talking about Bob,” she said, distaste returning to her voice. “Just know this – the words for a truth spell that will help guide your life for the next few days goes ‘truth come to me, truth stay with me’.”

“Truth come with me, truth stay with me?” Jackie quoted. The light on her bedside table began to flicker alarmingly. She shot a glance at it and the electric flame shone brighter than ever. “Mom, what did I just do?”

“Something amazing,” Pam said. “Gotta go, sweetie, I have a face mask with my name on it.”

“But…” A dial tone greeted Jackie. She glared at the receiver and tried not to think of the hell that awaited her after her beauty routine.

Not that she really needed it, with looks like hers.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

It felt like a remarkably ordinary day to Jackie. Some part of her had thought that the world would suddenly turn to ice cream after Pam’s revelation, but she still needed to do her own packing, still needed to make plans to go to Chicago. Still couldn’t find anyone willing to drive her, as if they were punishing her for picking Chicago over the gang and Point Place. She was going to miss Eric's goodbye party, which was already making her feel crummy.

She could rely on Kelso, but Kelso was the last person she wanted to rely on.

As she cycled through the afternoon, trying to avoid saying much until she knew what depths her powers held, Jackie didn’t head to the Foreman’s until it was almost time for her to leave. 

She took a moment, standing in the open back door, to look around this damp, dank, gross place. She smiled. It was prettier than the Nieman Marcus show floor. 

But it felt so weird to stand there and realize this would be the last time she'd ever be there. The nostalgia that filled her up and threatened to drag her under, making her feel like a little girl. She’d never in her life yearned for the past, for a reversion to the way things had been, only when her parents had split up and her father had gone off to prison. But now she was watching Hyde, and he wasn't even turning around to look at her.

“Close the door, you’re gonna make it hot in here.”

She did. “It’s time to go.”

“Already?”

He didn’t move. “Yeah. Do you know where **we’re** going?”

He got up from the couch. For Steven, that was an impressive gesture that portended romance. 

She could have had anyone. There was an idiot sitting in the driveway who would be glad to do whatever she asked if she did something unspeakably classless in the front seat of his car. But while Kelso may have offered to drive her there, while she wondered why he was being so nice to her after the endless mess they’d been through, she didn’t feel anything other than friendship. She only knew one thing for sure – she didn’t love him. She loved Hyde. 

And Hyde, sitting on the couch in Eric’s basement, was trying to ignore her. The effect of it all was enough to drive her over the line. Under her breath, the words came to her lips.

“Truth come to me, truth guide me.”

The air around them sizzled. Jackie could _feel_ the painful heat vibrate around them, cracking through the stifling, pot-scented air of the basement. A lightbulb popped and she screamed, which made Hyde act – he rushed toward her, both of his arms wrapped around her. The television set began to rapidly switch channels.

And then, there was stillness.

She didn’t dare look up and meet his eyes. But she could hear him calling her name, muffled against the thick, dark waves of her hair. She looked up and into his…well, sunglasses. It had been so long since she’d looked into his eyes....Was there a way to conjure them off into negative space? She'd have to figure that out.

“Jackie?” he asked. His eyebrow rose. She could almost see his brain churning in confusion. Good. She didn’t want to be the only person feeling disturbed by what she'd just done with a wave of her hand and a moment or two of flashing lights. 

“I’m going to Chicago in an hour.”

“I know.”

“But I don’t have to go.” Silence filled the space between them. “If you wanted to give me a reason to stay…even a little tiny reason…or a little tiny diamond.”

He reached over and turned off the set, then wrapped his arms around her once more. Jackie sunk into the security of the sensation, the warmth. “Do you want the truth?”

She nodded, “if it’s not going to ruin my eye makeup,” she said.

He grunted. “The truth is I don’t want you to go, Jackie” he said. “I don’t really think of the future. I don’t make long-term plans. The closest I’ve gotten to responsible is running Grooves. Planning’s for squares who don’t realize breakfast cereal was invented by a man who wanted to stop people from stroking it.”

“That’s gross,” she said.

“The truth is always gross,” he said. “Didn’t you read that book?”

“I tried but it got boring,” she said.

The expression on his face suggested that the words were being forced up his throat, out into the air, where she could hear them, and even though alarm bells were ringing loudly in the back of Jackie’s head she didn’t want the rush of feelings pouring out of him to ever stop. “But I don’t want to be the reason you missed out this.” 

“Do you mean it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess there's an easy way to solve our problems. Maybe I should go with you to Chicago.”

She squealed and he reeled back from the sound she’d made. “Do you really mean that?”

“As long as I don’t have to go with Kelso,” he said.  


That was easy enough to fix“Kelso!” she yelled over her shoulder, “I’m going with Hyde!”

She could hear him from the driveway. “What?! I spent all morning waxing my mustache!"

“Second thing you’re gonna wax by yourself, man,” Hyde said.

“Was that burn?” Kelso asked.

“GO AWAY!” Jackie and Hyde shouted together. There was some complaint before his engine roared to life. Jackie knew that he’d be off seeing Betsy soon enough, and she’d be well forgotten.

Then she was alone with Steven.

Alone, and she had no time to take advantage of it.

Pft. And they called THIS magic!

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

They didn’t quite move on impulse; Jackie had too much luggage for sudden freedom of movement. When they climbed into the front seat of Hyde’s still imposing, still huge and black, car, she finally thought to ask him a question.

“Do you need to pack anything?” 

“I travel light,” he said. “It’s just me, my shades, and whatever I have in the trunk.”

That was the most Steven sentence she’d heard in ages. “Okay. Let’s go.”

As they took to the highway, she wondered if this counted as a commitment. It was further than he’d ever gone before, further than either of them had ever been.

It was scary and exciting for a number of reasons, but it wouldn’t be because she lost him.

Time passed by in a daze. They had lunch at Denny’s. He called Missus Foreman from a phone booth, and she listened in while trying to compose herself for her pilot episode. When they got to the studio he hung around and tried to look as cool as possible while she went from segment to segment, interview to interview. Thankfully he seemed to be…well she couldn’t say he was entertained, but he at least seemed to be willing to tolerate the process.

And Jackie got what she always wanted. To become a TV star, for just a brief, shining moment. And as the day passed and she crossed her fingers that somehow, in some way, she’d managed to make it through the maybe she mumbled the truth spell under her breath. 

Only a few times.

Her producer told Jackie over dinner that the dailies looked adequate, her performance decent. She winced, tried to correct herself but no – the word ‘adequate’ had attached itself to her lips and refused to shake itself free. She winced but didn’t say anything. The truth spell had a downside, but Jackie didn’t realize that such honesty might be turned back upon her.

“Did I blow it?” she asked him as they walked down the Miracle Mile side by side.

“No more than usual,” he said.

Ugh. She needed to ask her mother what the ‘undo’ button for the spell was.

In any event, she and Steven had made strides today. He’d given her some kind of future! A future that…well, probably needed a little bit of work to be worthwhile. But this was a commitment! Sort of! 

If the series worked. If the local affiliate didn’t kick her off for being charmless or too bland. If she could force people to like her with her iron will – which heck, she could probably do that with magic, couldn’t she? 

Her head was a buzz of confusing, contradictory ideas as Steven stretched out in the bed beside her. Their TV was playing the local news and she imagined herself delivering the best and worst that Chicago had to offer, right to people’s TV sets. Part of her wanted to redecorate the world; make it better, easier to handle for people – and part of her just plain wanted to be a star. 

Jackie hated feeling like this. She was rarely the guilty sort. Feeling bad was for poor people or losers. Smart people did what they meant and said what they wanted to, and managed to stay confident and cool of mind while doing it. She kept trying to toss and turn –normally the heat of Steven’s body and the sound of him breathing would be enough to make her fall right to sleep, but, curled up together with the victory of the pilot firmly behind her, Jackie suddenly recalled what she’s nervously done. Only when she clung to his arm did she remember the impact of her mother’s words. The truth spell.

All of this was because of the truth spell.

She had forced Steven to admit he wanted her to succeed! Had bent him to her desires and wants with a flick of her wrist.

Cool!

But she’d made him come with her. Was that a side-effect of the spell? Was she brainswashing him?

That might be useful….

_No wait, crap! Get ahold of yourself! If you wanted a zombie for a boyfriend you’d be banging Kelso! You like Steven because he’s got ideas of his own, not because…_

“Jackie,” he complained into her shoulder. “I can hear you thinking. Go back to sleep.”

She hadn’t been to sleep yet – not at all. But she allowed herself to be taken away by the sound of his voice.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Steven held court with her possible colleagues at Dennys the following morning while they ate breakfast. He had a million opinions about how the gas shortage was a false scarcity to keep people from researching Jimmy Carter’s peanut farms.

“There’s something there,” he said. “Trust me. It’s going to make Nixon’s stuff look like child’s play.” The guys in the group all nodded in agreement, apparently deeming Steven’s wisdom worthwhile. Part of her was glad that they’d accepted him as one of their own, but the rest of her was annoyed at his logic going unquestioned.

“Steven,” she said, “why would Jimmy Carter do something that would make him really unpopular if he wanted to distract them? Wouldn’t he do something good?”

“That’s what they’d be expecting,” he said. “Never do what they expect. Keep them off-balance. That’s how we snuck aliens into Roswell.”

She sighed. “Okay, before you start arguing about aliens I’m going to the bathroom,” she said.

“Don’t be too long,” he said. 

She grinned at his open sappiness – and the look of horror in his expression - as she headed to the ladies room, then stopped at a phone booth, which turned out to be a wasted dime because Pam didn’t pick up, because of course she wouldn’t. She hoped that book would be waiting for her at Donna’s place – the last address Pam had for her. She needed to figure out how to fix this before she made everything even harder with this stubborn, intractable magic – these words that she didn’t quite understand but had applied to her life without a second thought.

By the time she’d gotten back to the table, Hyde was fooling around with the crane machine. By the time she paid the bill, he’d won her a teddy bear. 

“Steven! How thoughtful!”

“I know,” he said, strained, as if she’d kneed him in a very sensitive place. “I thought you’d like it!”

She carried the bear with her the whole day. If this was Steven at his most honest she wanted to preserve the memory of him without his armor in the back of her mind for as long as she could.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Another day of work later, she managed to charm him into taking her to a club. The Titanium was a tiny disco and it was crowded. She knew it was Steven’s idea of hell, but they’d poke around a record store in the morning so he could both scope out Grooves’ competition and load up on the latest music. She wore her best dress, and he combed his hair. A tee-shirt and a scowl accompanied them to the disco.

He was striving; the spell might be making him be as honest as possible but it wasn’t forcing him to be kind or tolerant of her whims.

She danced around him while he stood still, his arms folded across this chest.

“Move with me!” she yelled at him. 

“You know I don’t dance, even after Mrs Foreman taught me how to…” he said, and glowered, “I mean that Mrs. Foreman taught me how to dance.”

“I know that she did! Which is why I want you to dance with me!” She kissed his cheek. “Let me change that sentence. Will you dance for me?”

 

He grunted. Any motion the two of them made together was semi-voluntary on his part, but in spite of himself – due to her persistence, Steven began to get into the dance. And the more time they spent dancing together, the happier she felt. It was like walking on a beautiful, fluffy cloud.

No wait, they were _literally_ dancing on a cloud. A cloud that was a few inches off of the floor.

With a muffled gasp, she and Hyde lost the support under their feet and they crashed gracelessly to the ground.

“Jackie…did we just float around like a couple of feathers?”

She made a soft, nervous laughing sound. “It’s this new hairspray? It makes me really…light?” Maybe most of the other clubgoers seemed to shrug in reaction - they simply thought they’d tripped over their own feet. She tried to look awkward and unpoised – an extremely difficult task for someone with her swanlike grace – as they left the dance floor together. 

Hyde fixed his jacket – he grumped and complained as she bought him a beer and tried to look normal. non-suspicious. Not like a woman who was a witch, a process that was hereditary and possibly impossible to control. She knew he was going to be paranoid about her powers if she ever told him about them, and she didn’t want to deal with that, as much as she loved him. The assembled audience they’d attracted grumbled an assent - hey, if she said they'd fallen over then they totally fell over, right? - and Jackie felt relief fill her. Soon they were back to the business of dancing and drinking, and Jackie did the same without further complaint.

Steven stared at her. Even with his sunglasses on, she knew he was giving her his ‘I suspect total bullshit’ face. “That was the worst excuse you’ve ever given anyone.”

She reached up and kissed his face. “As long as it’s the most anything, I’m happy,” she said.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Jackie and Hyde made it back to Point Place just before Friday, and by then she was a bundle of emotions and nerves. Which meant she was stress-eating, which meant she had broken out and that Hyde had lovingly nicknamed her Polka Dots. A permanent move to Chicago would rest upon how well her test films played for the heads at the network; to say she was sweating bullets would be an understatement.

They were eating Crackle bars together on the couch in Eric’s basement when Donna came in through the back door, lugging a huge book. Donna's strength meant that she barely staggered under its weight

“Hey, this just showed up at my house – the wrapper says it's from your mom?” Confusion twisted her features slightly.

Jackie got up and immediately grabbed the book, clutching it to her chest. It felt lighter than she'd assumed it would be. “Oh my God, thank you so much…”

Hyde watched her. Again, the suspicion in his eyes had turned into something entirely new. “Baby, I thought you said reading’s for dorks.”

She laughed nervously. “This is my research bible.” Her very heavy research bible. Steven’s world was music – he didn’t know anything about television production. Her shoulders relaxed as he shrugged it off.

“Don’t work too hard,” he said.

She kissed him between the eyes. “Never. When you’re as smart as I am, you hardly have to work at all!”

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Jackie read through the book thoroughly in the Foreman’s bathroom for hours, making notes with a tube of lipstick on a piece of toilet paper. That would have to be good enough until she got home and to her diary. 

She was startled and a little amused by what the book revealed. Apparently she was a long lost descendant from some Salem witches who had hidden away in New Hampshire while the town was tearing itself apart looking for wicked women in black capes. Her ancestors had thrived by lying about their intent, and while they had given up positions of great prestige to fall in love and intermarry with mortals, they still retained some measure of magical power. Jackie, generations down the line, had a form of magic that was thus diluted and unpredictable compared to what her ancestors knew. Part of her sighed at the loss of possible power, the rest of her was excited by the fact that she could work any sort of magic at all.

She started regretting her choice to occupy the bathroom when Donna hammered at the door. “Jackie! I need to pee!”

“Can’t you use the upstairs bathroom? I’m…going. A lot.” And then she pushed the plunger and gave a fake flush as she continued reading the spells her mother had helpfully marked off with old newspaper clippings pinned to the pages with paperclips. 

“You can’t be ‘going’ for that long! I thought you’d rather die than crap near Steven.”

“Emergencies are emergencies!” she shouted, and flushed again. “And I really want to be alone right now!” 

As soon as the words were out of her mouth Jackie realized she’d made a mistake, because they warped her all the way back to Donna’s house. The disorientation Jackie felt washed away in a flood of fear. “Oh no! Oh crap!” She desperately paged back through the book trying to figure out how to get back to the Foremans without being seen. The idea of sneaking out of the room and back across the way occurred to her, but she knew she’d be found out - by Bob, or by . 

“Wine…wish..warp spell!” She then recited, _”I wish I were home!”_ That it didn’t take her to her old house but to the Foreman’s basement said a lot about how she felt about the world. She’d think about that later.

Jackie's eyes watered as the dust settled. Hyde hadn’t looked up from the TV set. Donna was still upstairs. Fez had started knocking at the back door, but he hadn’t witnessed her entrance to the room. “Donna! I’m done!” Jackie yelled, and tossed herself onto the couch. She was snuggled up with Hyde by the time Donna returned.

Jackie breathed a sigh of relief to herself. If she could keep this balancing act up, then she would be able to get a handle on this yet.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Three days later, she woke up sparkling after sleeping at Donna’s place.

And she screamed loudly enough at the sight of herself from Donna’s bathroom to wake Donna up, and Donna ran to the bathroom and then Donna – unflappable, cool, fearless, lumberjackian Donna – actually yelled loudly enough to get Bob up.

He was at the door with a baseball bat in seconds. “What’s going on? Are there mice? Did you burn yourself with curling irons?”

Donna slammed the bathroom door shut before Bob could see into the room. “We’re fine, dad! Go back to bed!” Jackie couldn’t hear the rest of what Donna said to her father – she was only glad when she heard him go back to his room. She mumbled out the corrective words to the spell before Donna could open the door.

“I had a feeling something totally weird was going on with you. I thought it was just stress over your pilot thing. But Jackie…”

“I know.”

_”Jackie, what the hell?”_

“If I tell you what’s going on then you have to promise not to tell Steven,” she ordered. “I’m trying to figure out how to break it to him without making him freak out about the government putting magic juice in my Doctor Pepper Lipgloss.” 

“All right,” Donna said. “So what kind of magic’s happening?”

“I’m a witch,” Jackie confessed. 

“I knew that, but why were you sparkling?” Jackie punched Donna’s arm. “Ow, and that’s not an answer.”

“It’s kind of my mom’s fault. On her side of the family there’s like, hundreds of beautiful witches and they’re all awesome and I’m one of the last of my kind at the moment.”

“Except for your cousins.”

“They don’t count,” Jackie said. “But please do me a favor and keep this super quiet. I don’t know how to break it to Steven and I want to do it right.”

“Why not just make a banner or something? ‘Hey, I’m a Witch.’”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “And then he’ll sit there and go ‘ha ha, I already knew’ just like you did.”

“Yeah, but this time you’ll be ready with a joke. Or you can tell him to shut up before he finishes his sentence.”

Jackie sighed. “I feel like I’m never going to get the hang of this stuff.”

“That’s what you said about mechanics. Now look at you – you can take apart a car in two seconds.”

“And now I can do it with a snap of my fingers.” She rubbed her chin. “Bet there’s a spell for that.”

Jackie would have to take the time and look it up.

“Y’know what? I’m not going to ask questions,” Donna said. “I’m going to blame this on the bad batch we smoked up tonight and call it a day.”

“You’re not asking questions?” Jackie asked flatly. “I was going full Linda Blair in Roller Boogie back there and YOU don’t have any questions?”

“I wasn’t the one sparkling,” Donna pointed out, as if that were a reasonable response.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Most of the rest of her week was spent going to work at the station, then checking her answering service for messages, then diving deeply into the tome her mother had sent. Jackie learned all of the basics quickly enough – how to make rain fall from the sky, how to stop time, how to conjure up infinite money. She undid the truth spell the second she could. But after a date with Hyde, a midnight reading of the book provided her with some information that she didn’t particularly want.

“How to make sure every answer you get is a yes.” A terrible temptation swamped her nerves instantaneously. She could know in a second whether or not she’d be a TV star. She could cut out all the fear and anxiety with a single breath (not that she ever experienced those sort of feelings, not confident Jackie Beulah Burkhart, not her). She read the words over. 

“No no’s,” she said. The charge of tingling magic fried through the nerve endings of her fingertips, making her feel suddenly as if some big storm had blown through the room. 

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

When she got a call from the station, it was a yes.

When she asked Donna if she could borrow one of her sweaters to take to Chicago with her and wear during the first episode, she said yes even though she looked like she wanted to say no.

That night, Hyde threw her a party – well, Fez did the cooking, and Eric – on the eve of heading off to Africa for missionary work – mainly sat back and let them talk. Kelso was off with his daughter. Donna was auditioning at a new radio station in Milwaukee. Her old gang was getting broken up, and it definitely sucked, but it was part of growing up, she told herself, as she cried off another layer of mascara.

When she and Hyde were alone, the question came to her lips. “Will you marry me?” she blurted out.

There wasn’t fear in Hyde’s eyes when he said, ‘yeah’.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

Jackie’s life was perfect. She had a boyfriend who wanted to marry her. She had her dream job and a cute apartment. Her friends were totally cool with getting her things whenever she wanted them. Leif Garrett had a number one hit on the radio. Her life was totally wonderful and she wasn’t going to ask questions about whether or not she was really forcing everyone to say yes to her every whim. It was a healthy thing. Everything was fine.

Ugh. No it wasn’t. It sucked. She wanted everyone to adore her, but it definitely didn’t feel like it was sincerely meant when she had gamed them all into saying yes without thinking. It made the victory annoyingly hollow, as if she’d done nothing but trip her way into success. Which wasn’t entirely true.

Her life would be so much easier if she were a sociopath. 

She called her mother from the station, and after three missed connections she finally found Pam. “How am I going to explain to Steven that I’m a witch?” she asked.

There was a protracted pause. “Well, I’m not a good person to ask,” said Pam. “I lied to your dad about my heritage for years. You know him. If it wasn’t a figure or a tax code, he didn’t care about it.”

“Maybe I should just do it. It’s like pulling out a tooth – get it over with and do it soon.”

“Good going, sweetie! Now hang up, mommy has a pool boy with her name on him – or he will soon.” 

Jackie shuddered and did exactly as her mother requested.

 

 

****

**~~ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>~~**

 

 

She didn’t expect to find Steven was half-drunk on Budweiser in a downtown bar. He was having trouble adjusting to Chicago, and she knew it, and he was trying not to show it. Why did life have to be so complicated? She sat down beside him and tapped his shoulder.

“Hey. Can we talk?”

“I hate talking,” he said.

“But this is important. And now it’s not about my feelings or anything like that. I have something to tell you.”

“You’re pregnant,” he said, and it sounded like an accusation.

“God, no!”

“You’re leaving me for another guy?”

“Hyde, I’m…” 

“Hey!” The shout of a nearby waitress distracted her from her confession. She spotted the guy she was struggling with – a tall, ugly dude who was shaking her hard. And she knew the words for the smiting spell and spoke them, her index finger extended.

Right in front of Steven.

It did stop the guy, but it also started a small fire.

They were stuck waiting outside in the rain. She watched the street flood with people, watched the firemen pile into the bar. She immediately turned toward Steven, who for once wasn’t doing anything but standing back and watching the chaos.

“That was…” he began.

“Steven, if we’re going to say goodbye, then it’s goodbye. But I’d give it up,” she confessed. “For you, all of it.” She meant the show and magic. Wait! Holy crap, she really did mean the show too!

“You're not one of them, are you?" he asked.

"One of what?", she asked

"A commu-witch?"

"What the hell's...No, I'm just a witch. It's okay if you want to go, I'm going to be really lonely but I'll..."

…I was going to tell you you were totally cool. But forget giving everything up. Because I don’t want to get in the way of your dream – and I don’t want you to stop being who you are. You know lockstep, enforced normalcy is bourgeois crap anyway. There’s nothing more anti-establishmentarian than breaking the system with magic. Your powers are groovy! Just don’t use them on me!”

She blinked. Was that…actual honesty coming from Steven Hyde’s lips? 

_Oh no._

Had she spoken the spell? Desperately she wracked her brain, trying to remember. She promised herself she’d undo all of the things – the second he stopped kissing her.

She was a witch, she had an awesome boyfriend, and even though she was going to probably going to have to go back to Point Place and take her lumps over forcing her way into a job that she was unsuited for, she was better off now than she’d been before she’d discovered her powers. 

Her life was out of sight!


End file.
